Re: [Evolution-hackers] Reconsidering our release cycle

[Srinivasa Ragavan <sragavan gnome org>]

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 7:40 PM, Matthew Barnes <mbarnes redhat com> wrote:
> I've been kicking around this idea for awhile now, but haven't said
> anything until now.  I'm putting it out there as food for thought.
>
> Increasingly I'm feeling like the traditional 6-month release cycle is
> just too short for Evolution.  In terms of development, we have a pretty
> short window for landing major changes and allowing adequate time for
> testing before development freezes set in.

I  like the idea very much and had similar plans before, but never
went forward with it before.

> But more importantly, our users seem to be constantly playing catch-up
> in terms of supported releases.  Because of the delay between upstream
> releases and distro releases, by the time users finally upgrade to a
> newer Evolution, more often than not they're upgrading to a version
> that's either nearing the tail end of its 6-month support window or is
> already unsupported.
>
> That's frustrating, both for users and for me as a developer, but we
> just don't have the manpower to support multiple stable releases and
> still get any kind of significant development work done.
>
> I'd like us to consider moving to a 12-month release cycle, which would
> sync up with GNOME's release schedule annually instead of semi-annually.
>
> Here's my initial proposal, if you guys are open to this:
>
> * Continue with the 6-month releases through the end of the year, just
>   because I think we need more lead time for such a major policy change.
>
> * Bump Evolution's major version number to split away from GNOME's
>   semi-annual release numbering.  Call the upcoming March 2014 release
>   Evolution 4.0 (or perhaps even Evolution 2014... I'm open to ideas).
>
> * We would follow GNOME's string change announcement and freeze schedule
>   in the months leading up to each March release.
>
> * We would continue releasing stable updates and development snapshots
>   at a steady pace.  Our release schedule could even be more predictable
>   than it is now.  We could do, for example, stable releases on the 1st
>   Monday of each month and development snapshots on the 3rd Monday.

The challenge will be to sync properly with the GNOME freezes during
the second half of the cycle. It will be good to sync with that, so
that when the product releases with GNOME release, there is doc /
translation all ready.

I really wouldn't want EDS to be part of this, if we ever want it to
be a proper platform/core material. Just Evolution would be better fit
for this model IMHO.

-Srini